Rio Tinto and Unifor Local 2301 will be meeting this Thursday to determine if there is enough common ground to re-start negotiations in hopes of ending the strike at the company’s Kitimat aluminum smelter which is now in its third week.
In a letter to their employees released back on saturday, Rio Tinto’s management team said that both parties had agreed to a meeting in the coming days in order to “evaluate the options of going back to the negotiation table.”
Rio Tinto also stated in the letter that part of the reason the negotiations had to be stopped was because the union had made too many demands.
Unifor’s president Martin Mcllwrath responded by stating that the union brought the fewest demands they had in about 20 years to the table and also said that the reason the strike happened was because of Rio Tinto’s unwillingness to resolve what he called legitimate issues.
Mcllwrath also made note that when the previous agreement expired in July, Rio Tinto supposedly asked for a 24-hour extension to come up with a compromise between the two sides on their issues, and when they got back to negotiating the next day, Rio Tinto had apparently not come up any kind of solution to the problems, which is what led to the strike, according to Mcllwrath.
Mcllwrath also stated that the only way to resolve these issues is by getting back to the bargaining table.
Rio Tinto’s representatives from their head office in Montreal will be flying in for the meeting on Thursday.
Comments